gEDA-user: SPICE & gaf

[Scott Dattalo]

Stuart's tutorials on using SPICE with gaf are well written and easy to 
follow. Unfortunately, they need to be updated. Specifically, loading 
the schematics in gEDA/examples/RF_Amp (which are packaged in the 
20061020 gaf release), give warnings like:

Loading schematic [/home/scott/projects/platypus/spice/ex_RF/MSA-2643.sch]
WARNING: Symbol version mismatch on refdes C1 (capacitor-1.sym):
       Symbol in library is newer than instantiated symbol
       Minor version change (file 0.100, instantiated 0.000)

Similar warnings also exist when the schematic is netlisted:

$ gnetlist -g spice-sdb -o MSA-2643.cir MSA-2643.sch


However the netlist encounters an error too (and is probably related to 
the warning):

Found a pin [X2] on component [2] which does not have a label!
Using SPICE backend by SDB -- Version of 12.27.2005
schematic-type = .SUBCKT Q1_MSA26F
ERROR: In procedure <:
ERROR: Wrong type argument in position 1: #f

Finally, the SPICE circuit files that are extracted from the RF example 
(and also package in the 20061020 release) fail to run under ngspice 
revision 17 (this version of ngspice is installed by yum -- I don't know 
if this binary had the XSpice option turned on or not). Note, there's a 
hard coded include directive in these examples that one must adjust.

First there's this warning (it appears twice):

Warning -- Level not specified on line "(bf=1e6 ikf=5.895e-1 
ise=2.838e-19 ne=1.006   vaf=44 nf=1 tf=5.37e-12 xtf=20 vtf=0.8 
itf=8.872e-1 ptf=22   xtb=0.7 br=1 ikr=4.4e-2 nc=2 var=3.37 nr=1.005 
tr=4e-9   eg=1.17 is=1.79e-17 xti=3 tnom=21 cjc=3.717e-14   vjc=0.6775 
mjc=0.3319 xcjc=4.398e-1 fc=0.8 cje=3.217e-13   vje=0.9907 mje=0.5063 
rb=2.325 irb=3.272e-4 rbm=2.5e-2 kf=1.026e-24)"
Using level 1.

And finally, when you run the simulation, there's a convergence error.

1) Has anyone updated the example schematics? I just checked CVS and it 
appears these are 3 years old.
2) Has anyone successfully ran the example SPICE decks under ngspice-17?

I might do (1) -- assuming I can get my setup working.

Thanks,
Scott